Agent Counter-Agent

by Nick Carter

  "Let me go, damn it!" I yelled at the Venezuelan.

  He released his grip on me just long enough to throw a big fist into my face. It hit me hard, and I fell back onto the table. But by now the guard was feeling the effects of the death machine. He grabbed at his head. I slugged him hard in the face, and he went down.

  I tried to ignore the mounting excruciating pain in my head and chest, fighting the nausea that was overcoming me. I climbed unsteadily up onto the table, grabbed the water carafe, and stumbled off the other side of the table with it.

  I fell when I hit the floor and dropped the carafe. With extreme difficulty I crawled over to it and picked it up again, then staggered back to my feet.

  At such close range the effects of the device were even more intense. I was reeling. I glanced at the Venezuelan President and saw he had slumped back in his chair, his eyes glazed. The American Vice-President was trying desperately to get out of his chair. Everyone else in the room was getting very sick very fast.

  I stumbled over to a window and smashed the leaded panes with the carafe. I was just about to throw it through the broken glass when Hawk burst into the room.

  "Stop whatever you're doing, or I'll blow a hole right through your head. I mean it."

  I looked and he was aiming his Beretta at me. I saw the look on his face change when he felt the vibrations from the machine.

  "This is an ultrasonic weapon," I said weakly. "I'm getting rid of it."

  Without waiting to see whether he was going to pull the trigger, I turned my back on him and threw the carafe through the broken pane. It shattered more glass then fell to the pavement below, smashing to pieces.

  Exhausted, I turned back to face Hawk. I was so weak I had to prop myself up against the window-sill. Suddenly I felt the pain subside, and my churning stomach began to calm down. I looked around the room and saw that others were feeling the relief, too. They were beginning to show signs of life. The Venezuelan President moved in his chair, and the American Vice-President put a hand to his forehead. I was sure they'd be all right. They hadn't been exposed long enough for really serious injury. But I suspected that we'd all have quite a hangover for the rest of the day.

  The room was slowly regaining some semblance of normality. The conference members were recovering pretty well, looking around at each other with sick, confused expressions on their faces.

  Hawk was walking toward me with his Beretta pointed at my chest. A couple of security men came up and flanked him. He stood right in front of me, still holding the gun on me. The men with him looked as if they'd shoot at the slightest provocation.

  "First you knife one of your own colleagues, an old friend at that, and you threaten my life," Hawk shouted angrily. "Then you clobber the head of the Venezuelan Security Police. And now this!"

  The man I'd knocked down on the way in came over to join the group, his face still twisted from the pain he'd undergone. "He claimed there was a weapon in the water carafe," the man said. "Then something terrible started happening in here. When he got rid of the carafe, whatever it was stopped."

  "That's right," an American at the table said. "It stopped the minute he threw that carafe through the window."

  "So what was in the carafe, Nick?" Hawk asked. "Or do you still maintain you're a revolutionary named Rafael Chávez?"

  "How's Vincent, sir?" I asked, ignoring his question. "Did I…?"

  "Kill him?" Hawk finished for me. "No. He's going to be all right You missed his liver by about half an inch."

  "Thank God," I said dully. Now that the conference was saved, along with the lives of its principals, I felt total exhaustion come over me. I needed about a week of sleep. And I found I didn't much care what they thought of my explanations. "No sir, I realize now I'm not Chávez. I got my memory back prematurely, I think, when the jets flew over. They wanted me to remember, but not till I heard a lower-frequency signal from the device. Then I was supposed to know who I am and realize what I'd done.*

  "They?" Hawk said, studying my face.

  "The people who detained me for two days," I said.

  Hawk studied my eyes and apparently decided that I was acting like Nick Carter again. He holstered his gun and waved the other agents off. The Vice-President was walking over to us.

  "What the hell happened in here?" he asked us.

  The Venezuelan President got up out of his chair. He answered the Vice-President above the noise in the room. "It seems that this young man has just saved our lives. That is what has happened, señor Vice-President."

  The Vice-President looked from the Venezuelan President back to me. "Yes," he said slowly. "I believe that pretty well sums it up. But what was that devilish thing you threw out the window, Nick?"

  "I'm not sure, sir," I said. "But if we can go somewhere private for a minute, I'll be happy to give you my theories."

  "A good idea," the Venezuelan President said. "Gentlemen, this conference will recess for one hour, and then we will reconvene here to conclude our business."

  We had a very private meeting. The Venezuelan President, the American Vice-President, Hawk, and I went to the security annex, and everyone else was asked to leave. The chief of the Venezuelan Security Police had already been taken to the headquarters for a treatment. In a few minutes I was alone with the two dignitaries and Hawk.

  "You acted very quickly in there, young man," the Venezuelan President said, his hands clasped behind him as he spoke.

  "Thank you, sir," I said.

  "Nevertheless, Carter," the Vice-President spoke up, "you've got a lot of explaining to do. Someone told me it was you who brought the carafe into the room."

  "I'm afraid that's right, sir," I answered.

  Hawk grimaced. "It seems that Carter was kidnapped and persuaded to believe that he was a Venezuelan revolutionary intent on assassination," he said sourly. He lit up a long cigar and began pacing the room, hunched down in his tweed jacket.

  "Very interesting," the Venezuelan President said. "And now your normal faculties have returned, Señor Carter?"

  "Yes, sir."

  The American Vice-President sat down on the edge of a desk. "That's all very nice for us here in this room. But when the press gets wind of this, they'll be screaming that an American agent sabotaged the conference and tried to assassinate the President and me."

  "I agree," said Hawk. "This wont be easy to explain."

  "That occurred to me, too, sir," I said to the Vice-President. "But we do have a couple of leads to the people who are really responsible."

  "And who are they?" the President asked.

  I remembered what Tanya had said that night in her apartment just before the drug knocked me out. I looked over at Hawk for clearance to tell them, and he nodded. "KGB," I said.

  "Qué demonio!" muttered the President.

  "Stall the press for twenty-four hours," I said, "I'll try to find them. After that we can see that the entire world press gets the story. The real story."

  Hawk studied my face for a minute, then looked at the Vice-President. "Can we have that much time?"

  The Vice-President raised his eyebrows. "With the help of the Venezuelan government," he said, turning to the President.

  The President looked at me soberly. "I trust this young man. You will have my full cooperation. Please keep me advised. And now, señor Vice-President, I must see my staff before the conference resumes. I will see you in the conference room. Mr. Carter, if you can vindicate yourself, you will receive my country's highest honors."

  Before I could protest, he was gone. The Vice-President got up from the desk and came over to me. "Now that it's all in the family, Nick, I feel I must voice one last thought."

  "I think I know what it is," I said. "I have the twenty-four hours on trust. Because I could really be a defector. Or maybe just a lunatic. After my time is up, I'm on my own."

  "Something like that, Nick. You seem all right to me now. But security is security. There has to be some doubt in my mind. I hope you don't mi
nd my speaking so frankly."

  "I understand. I'd feel the same way, sir," I said.

  "I'll stake my job on Carter," Hawk said suddenly, not looking at me. "I trust him implicitly."

  "Of course," the Vice-President said. "But get moving on this one, David. The press won't wait forever."

  The Vice-President left the room. Hawk and I were alone. After a long silence, I finally spoke.

  "Look, I'm really sorry about all this," I said. "If I'd just been more careful with the girl…"

  "Cut it out, Nick. You know that we can't guard against all eventualities. Anyway, I had you check her out. She was counting on that. Nobody could have avoided the trap you fell into. It was very well planned, and it was conceived by experts. Now, let's reconstruct what happened."

  "Well, my best guess is that I was drugged and then… maybe hypnosis, I don't know. I really can't remember anything since that evening in the girl's apartment. The drug was in her… lipstick."

  Hawk managed a small grin. "That's why you blame yourself. Don't be silly, my boy. But assuming this girl was a KGB agent and they took you to some secluded place to hypnotize you — why did they keep you for two days. Hypnosis would only take a few hours, at most. And how could they get you to do anything that went against your moral code? Hypnosis doesn't work that way."

  "Well, I'm just guessing, but if they could have managed to change my whole personality, my entire identity, then my moral code would be altered along with it. If I really accepted the fact that I was a revolutionary who believed in the forcible overthrow of his government, the idea would work. And we know that the Russians are using behavior-control techniques that can completely break down a man's morals and integrity and make him a slave to conditioned response. A combination of hypnosis and behavior control could have convinced me I was Chávez."

  "Yes," Hawk said thoughtfully. "And a damned clever idea it was. Take a top American agent, turn him into an automaton killer, and turn him loose to do some dirty work for you. Then let him and his country take the blame. I'm beginning to appreciate the threat in that warning note now."

  "Which was written just to get us over here," I said.

  "Exactly. And I fell for it — hook, line, and sinker. If anybody is to blame, Nick, it's me."

  "I read the note, too," I said. "Maybe we'd better quit trying to place blame and start thinking about bringing this assignment to a close. We've destroyed their grand plan, but now we have to nail them." I looked at the floor. "I have an idea they're patting themselves on the back over this one and maybe getting a good laugh out of it. Well, the fun at my expense is over. When I find them, they won't be laughing."

  "I suspect you've sobered them up some already," Hawk said, "since you aborted their multiple assassination attempt. How do you know the girl is KGB?"

  "Because she told me," I said. "Or at least she admitted it when I asked her. That was just before the drug knocked me out. Anyway, her real name is Tanya Savitch, and she has a hint of Russian in her German accent. I couldn't quite identify it before the drug."

  "Is that all you can remember about her?"

  "At the moment. I have an apartment to check out and the German Embassy and a restaurant where I saw her. Also, I have a memory of a clinic and white-coated men and Tanya giving me instructions about all this. I can't remember their names or the things they did to me there. They blindfolded me when I left the clinic, so I have no idea where it is."

  Hawk grimaced. "Well, at least you avoided the tragedy they had planned, Nick. You say you came out of your trance prematurely?"

  "The jets going over made a sound similar to the one I was supposed to hear from the machine. That sound, along with the warning messages my subconscious had been sending for the past two days, made me to go to the window to hear the jets again. The KGB must have wanted me to return to my real identity after the assassination was over. If I denied I was Nick Carter, that might have confused the reporters. They wouldn't have known who was really responsible. Or they might have just figured I'd gone berserk. The KGB didn't want that. They were out to humiliate us, and they damn near succeeded."

  "Are you all right now, Nick?" Hawk asked, watching me closely.

  "I'm fine," I assured him. "But then, I'm supposed to be."

  He grunted. "Okay. Is the girl our only lead?"

  "The only good one. I remember something about that mystery man. Something new. I think he was at the clinic."

  Hawk puffed at his smelly cigar and blew a smoke ring. "That figures. Well, you should probably have some tests first, but we don't have time for that now. Get on with it if you feel up to it."

  "I'm up to it," I said. "But keep the police and the other agents away till my twenty-four hours are up. That's all I ask. I don't want to be stumbling over assistants."

  "All right, Nick," Hawk said.

  "Then I'll see you at your hotel."

  * * *

  I was seated across a large mahogany desk from Herr Ludwig Schmidt, the West German deputy ambassador, who was supposed to have taken Tanya to the reception the night I met her. Schmidt was reclining in his high-backed chair, a long cigarette in his right hand.

  "Oh, yes. I took Fraulein Hoffmann to the reception. She wanted to attend a diplomatic function. She is a bright girl, you know. She called in sick right after the reception. Apparently she ate something at a bullfight that upset her stomach terribly. She has still not returned to work."

  "How long has she been with you here?" I asked.

  "Not long. A Hamburg girl, if I'm not mistaken. Her father was a Russian refugee."

  "Is that what she told you?"

  "Yes. She speaks German with a slight accent because of her family situation. Her family spoke Russian in the home."

  "Yes," I said, "I see."

  Herr Schmidt was a very thin, sexless man in his forties, obviously very satisfied with his role in life. "A lovely girl, don't you agree?" he asked.

  I remembered the times I'd been with her on the sofa, cot, and bed. "A very lovely girl. Can I reach her at the address listed in your files?" It was the same place she'd taken me the night she'd drugged me.

  "Why, I'm sure you can. She is ill, after all."

  "Yes. In case I don't find her at home, do you know of anyplace else I might look? Restaurants or cafes or special places for relaxation?"

  "But I have told you the girl is ill."

  "Please," I said impatiently.

  He seemed irritated by my insistence. "Well, I myself have taken her to lunch on occasion at a small caf6 near here. I don't remember the name, but she likes the Venezuelan hallaca, and they serve it there. It is a cornmeal dish."

  "I know," I said. I remembered that Tanya had ordered that at El Jardín after the bullfight.

  Schmidt smugly stared at the ceiling. "Actually, I think the girl is attracted to me," he said confidentially, "Being a bachelor in this city is a delightfully consuming pastime."

  "I suppose," I said. "Well, I'll try to find her at home, Herr Schmidt. Good afternoon to you."

  He didn't get up. "My pleasure," he said. He stared up at the ceiling again, probably daydreaming about his sexual potential as an unmarried male in Caracas.

  I really didn't expect to find Tanya at her apartment. She must have arranged to leave it the minute the last phase of the operation began — my capture. But I hoped I'd find some land of clue there. I was met on the main floor of the building by a fat Venezuelan portera who didn't speak any English.

  "Buenos tardes, señor," she said loudly, a big grin on her face.

  "Buenos tardes," I answered. "I'm looking for a young woman named Ilse Hoffmann."

  "Ah, yes. But she doesn't live here any more. She moved out very suddenly, several days ago. An unusual foreign girl, if you will excuse me for saying it."

  I smiled. "Did she take everything with her?"

  "I haven't checked the apartment carefully. There are so many apartments here, and I am a busy woman."

  "Would you mind
if I took a look upstairs?" I asked.

  She gave me a hard look. "It is against the rules. Who are you, please?"

  "Just a friend of Miss Hoffmann's," I said. I reached into my pocket and offered the woman a fistful of bolívares.

  She looked at them, then back at me. She reached out and took the money, looking around her shoulder down the hall. "It is number eight," she said. "The door is unlocked."

  "Thanks," I said.

  I climbed the stairs to her apartment. With luck, I might be able to stop Tanya and her comrades before they caught a plane to Moscow. But I was worried — they undoubtedly knew by now that their plot had failed.

  Upstairs, I entered the apartment. Memories crashed in on me again in rapid succession. The wide sofa sat in the middle of the room, just as it had on that night when Tanya had bartered her body for the capture of an American agent. I closed the door behind me and looked around. It was all so different now. It lacked the life, the vibrancy, that Tanya had given it. I rummaged through the drawers of a small desk and found nothing but a couple of theater tickets. They wouldn't do me much good in the next twenty-four hours. I moved on through the rest of the apartment. I went into the bedroom and found a crumpled bullfight program in the wastebasket there. I recognized Tanya's handwriting because she scribbled the notes on the program when I was with her at the bullfight. Just some kind of reminder to pick up groceries. It was worthless to me. I'd just thrown it back into the wastebasket when I heard a sound in the living room. The door to the corridor had opened and closed very quietly.

  I reached for Wilhelmina and moved up tight against the wall beside the door. There was only silence from the other room. Somebody was stalking me. Somebody who had been watching the apartment building and was worried I'd get too close for comfort. Maybe it was Tanya herself. I heard an almost inaudible squeak of a board under the carpet. I knew the exact location of that board, since I'd stepped on it earlier myself. There didn't seem to be any reason to put off the confrontation. I stepped out into the doorway.